


Mercy for the Survivor

by Salmonellagogo



Category: Havemercy Series - Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett
Genre: Jossed, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-18
Updated: 2012-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:59:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmonellagogo/pseuds/Salmonellagogo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Was there enough Amery in me?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mercy for the Survivor

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a few years ago when my knowledge of this fandom was only as far as the first novel.

**BALFOUR**

I was born in Thremedon, to a good merchant class family with enough capital to lead a life in Miranda. My father traveled a lot, often hitching along one of his merchant ship, sailing to Arlemagne and beyond. My mother was sickly -- she never made it past my ninth year. That left me and Amery, two brothers in a house that was just a bit too large.

Amery took good care of me; scolded me when there was no mother to reprimand my manner; taught me the way of sword when there was no father to teach me. We argued over the most trivial thing, fought, and laughed, and forgave each other like brothers only could.

He left for the Airman when I was fourteen.

Now, almost ten years later, I felt I should be seeing his statue instead of mine.

The west sky bled crimson and saffron, the last vestige of sunlight, over familiar faces. They were disconcertingly precise. The slight nip over Raphael’s brow; the icy mien of Ivory's; Rook’s favorite earring; and many others I could point out if I sat there all day. It wouldn’t be surprising if I found out whoever carved this statues of us was a fan, back when we were the talk of Thremedon, or just plain observant -- or both.

I tried not to stare at my own stony face too much. It was daunting to find out what others perceived of me this way.

“Two pence for your thought?”

I wheeled my eyes back to Adamo. The Chief -- ex-Chief Sergeant was looking at me with a kind of mirth gracing the edges of his lips.

I swallowed and made a show of stirring my coffee –tiny spoon proved quite disagreeable to prosthetic fingers. “I was thinking about Amery,” I said.

Adamo made no comment, which was just for the better. He was Chief Sergeant for both Amery and me; and there was a time when I often wondered what he saw when he looked at me like that. _Was there enough Amery in me?_

I flexed and unflexed my fingers. I needed gloves. The old ones wouldn’t fit. The new ones wouldn’t be ready until next week.

Metal hands didn’t shame me -- whatever other peoples might be thinking -- or serve me as reminders. They were just hands, metal hands, practical things made to replace my old ones.

There was a shift. Adamo touched my hand with two fingers.

I lifted my eyes to meet his -- almost molten black in the half-light; eyes that screamed paroxysm of guilt. I drew both my hands. A repressed anger stole into me. What was he feeling guilty for? My prosthetic? My dragon? Our comrades? Amery? Or, perhaps, _all_?

“Let’s go back. It’s getting dark,” he said at length.

I nodded mutely and didn’t meet his eyes for the second time.

\---

We had sex, because that way we didn’t have to talk.

His kisses were slow, and deep, and intimate, like he needed to prove how strong he felt for me. I responded in kind, stroking his hair and back with unfeeling fingers.

After the last raid, we had had sex several times without my hands. Covered in ashes and burnt in the shower, desperation and taste of saline tears in our mouth; on the hospital bed; against empty common room’s wall, our voices echoing across the forlorn building.

And now -- now on his bed, in his rented apartment just short of the edge of Miranda, I was trying to find purchase all over again. Adamo had shaved his beard. The fine stubbles that grew overnight were prickly against my skin. He lapped the underside of my jaw, gently nosing his way down inch by inch. He could be the most patient man when he wanted to be and I let him. My hands hung uselessly around his neck.

I loved Adamo. I never doubted that, despite my strange attraction to the professor. I justified my feeling for Thom because of our mutual understanding forged by perpetual harassment from the airmen, and maybe -- a little voice kept telling me -- because he didn’t have any initial expectation on me. Thom, after all, was the only living soul within Airman who didn’t know Amery first hand.

“Adamo,” I moaned out when Adamo reached my navel. He liked it when I called out his name and I often used it in my own machination to push him up a notch.

He complied, shifting up to kiss me again, tongue and teeth joining into the oldest dance known to men. His hand snaked down my stomach to take my member. Sharp pleasure shot up my spine. I moaned again, remotely thinking of giving him the same favor before remembering I could no longer do so, and wondered instead how long would it be until Adamo get tired of this –of me.

I wouldn’t blame him.

Except of course, the afterimage of his guilty eyes chose that moment to haunt me. And I instinctively knew. He wouldn’t leave me. Not if it killed him. Not even if it killed me.

I gasped, cursing Amery for everything he was worth, for dying so young, for leaving me to take his place so unfairly -- and came.

  
END.


End file.
